Georgetown University Medical Center

Lauler Chair

Section: Lauler Chair

Georgetown University has established a Chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics in memory of Dr. David Lauler (C'53, M'57). Dr. Lauler has been described by his former patients, colleagues, and friends as the consummate "physician-healer." Inspired by the Gospel charge to uphold the dignity of each human person, he was an able spokesperson for the Catholic medical moral tradition in the face of increasingly accepted secular views in bioethics.

Georgetown University is recognized as a world-renowned leader in the area of ethics education for health care professionals, policy-makers, and the public. The establishment of an endowed Chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics has enabled Georgetown University Medical Center to recruit a renowned Jesuit scholar, Kevin T. FitzGerald, SJ, PhD to the Center for Clinical Bioethics to stimulate moral reflection and dialogue.

This discourse will imbue the educational experience of Georgetown's physicians and other health care professionals with a special sensitivity to the Catholic ethical approach in medical decision-making. In an age of rapid advances in medical research and technology, the boundaries of medical knowledge have expanded and increased the physician's ability to diagnose and treat disease. At the same time, however, the swift advance of biomedical sciences has generated new and unforeseen questions. For example, what ethical considerations and values should govern genetic engineering and therapy? Or, how does one measure the benefits and risks of procedures that have life and death consequences for those who are too young or who lack the mental competence to make such decisions? What course of action should physicians, parents of the unborn, and others take in the event that life-threatening disorders are diagnosed in a fetus? Who should get scarce resources, such as organs for transplantation? The answers to these questions can be discerned through the lens of Catholic medical moral tradition.

It was Dr. David Lauler's conviction that without adequate academic training of physicians and other health care professionals in the Catholic medical moral tradition, the Catholic voice and emphases would increasingly diminish in the arenas of contemporary medicine and health care. At risk is literally the integrity and dignity of the human person and family, the primacy of the healing relationship in models of health care delivery, medicine and nursing understood as vocational callings, and the public's ability to trust health care professionals and institutions.

All of these reasons led the Center for Clinical Bioethics and the Sullivan and Lauler families to establish the Dr. David Lauler Chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics to be a permanent tribute to Dr. Lauler's pursuit of excellence in clinical medicine, commitment to faith-based health care ethics, and Gospel witness.

As one of the most prestigious academic honors a university can offer, an endowed Chair clearly communicates the essential commitment and permanent importance of a field of study within an academic institution. The success of any academic institution rests primarily on recruiting scholars of the highest caliber and achievement. The holder of the Lauler Chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics will greatly enrich the already fertile environment at the Center for Clinical Bioethics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine by strengthening the Catholic platform in debate over bioethical issues, a debate which has become all too secular.

For more information on making gifts to the work of the Center for Clinical Bioethics please contact Carol Taylor, RN, Ph.D.at (202)687-4783 or write:

The Center for Clinical Bioethics
Georgetown University
Box 571409
Washington, DC 20057-1409